Implicit Bias: Are Schools Ruining Our Boys?

This year, women will comprise more than 56 percent of students on American college campuses, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some 2.2 million fewer men than women will be enrolled in college this year. Over 60 percent of college graduates are now females. By 2026, the department estimates, the gap between male and female college graduates will widen even more.
The achievement gap between boys and girls is real. Boys are struggling more in school than girls, and are typically a year and a half behind in reading and writing. Boys are more likely to be suspended, retained in grade or placed in special education. They are less likely to graduate from high school or enroll in and graduate from college. Boys from low-income and working-class families are hit the hardest.

Accounting for the achievement gap is problematic. Does it indicate an inherent bias in favor of girls?

The school system is an institution controlled by government. Government is controlled by politicians. Politicians are “influenced” monetarily and intellectually by politically- motivated interest groups. And many of the politically-motivated interest groups that choose to get involved in “education” are anti-traditional male.

This began in the 1960s, but reached full momentum in the 1990s in what was dubbed “the hidden crisis among the nation’s girls.”

Carol Gilligan, Harvard University’s first professor of gender studies was instrumental in promoting the idea with her publication of In a Different Voice. Gilligan’s work promoted the narrative that America’s adolescent girls were in crisis, “As the river of a girl’s life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of drowning or disappearing.” Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia (1994), was also a very successful girls-in-crisis book.

During the 1990s, in response to an organized political movement to address a perceived bias against girls in US education, laws and regulations (particularly at the Federal level) were written to correct what were believed to be profound injustices.

Image courtesy greatschools.org

At the time, it was felt girls needed and deserved special consideration. “It is really clear that boys are Number One in this society and in most of the world,”– Patricia O’Reilly, a professor of education and the director of the Gender Equity Center, at the University of Cincinnati.

“Schools shortchange girls,” — the American Association of University Women.

Suddenly, girls were considered an “under-served population” which led Congress to pass the Gender Equity in Education Act in 1994. Millions of dollars in grants were awarded to figure out how to counter bias against girls in school. At the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in1995, members of the U.S. delegation presented the educational and psychological deficits of American girls as a human-rights issue.

Politics dressed up as science
Unfortunately, most of this was not true.Further studies had proven that much of the claimed bias against girls had been overstated, or was just plain wrong.

In her studies, University of Pittsburgh professor Roberta Simmons, a professor of sociology(described by Science News as “director of the most ambitious longitudinal study of adolescent self-esteem to date”), noted that there really was no substantial gender gap, “Most kids come through the years from 10 to 20 without major problems and with an increasing sense of self-esteem.”

1998 Judith Kleinfeld, a psychologist at the University of Alaska, published a thorough critique of the research on schoolgirls titled The Myth That Schools Shortchange Girls: Social Science in the Service of Deception. Kleinfeld exposed a number of errors in other studies, concluding that it was “politics dressed up as science.”

What other studies found instead was that by the 1990s, girls had already established academic dominance over boys. Not only were girls more successful in school, but is was found that boys were falling even further behind, with many ultimately just rejecting school completely.

Critics such as Christina Hoff Sommers contends that “misguided feminism” accounts for some of the gap—part of a social war, an effort to civilize boys by diminishing their masculinity or as Gloria Steinem said, “Raise boys like we raise girls.”

Within the collective unconscious of American education, is feminizing the culture the metanarrative?

Is there really a bias against boys? Not so fast.

A new report by Sara Read reviewed the data on boys’ and girls’ achievement and educational attainment showed that boys weren’t really falling behind. In fact, boys were doing better than ever on a range of educational indicators. But girls’ achievement was improving faster, causing girls to pull ahead of boys. Also, another report from the Brookings Institution, finds that boys are starting to close the reading gap in the elementary grades. While high school girls today read about as well as they did in 1971, high school boys have improved since the early 1970s.

But what about higher education?
Based on Department of Education estimates, women will earn a disproportionate share of college degrees at every level of higher education in 2017 for the eleventh straight year (since 2007 when women first earned a majority of doctoral degrees). Overall, women in the Class of 2017 will earn 141 college degrees at all levels for every 100 men (up from 139 last year), and there will be a 659,000 college degree gap (up from 610,000 last year) in favor of women for this year’s college graduates (2.26 million total degrees for women vs. 1.6 million total degrees for men). By level of degree, women will earn: a) 164 associate’s degrees for every 100 men, up from 154:100 last year (female majority in every year since 1978), b) 135 bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1982), c) 140 master’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1987) and d) 109 doctoral degrees for every 100 men, up from 106:100 last year (female majority since 2007).

Over the next decade, the gender disparity for college degrees is expected to increase according to Department of Education forecasts, so that by 2026, women will earn 150 college degrees for every 100 degrees earned by men, with especially huge gender imbalances in favor of women for associate’s degrees (187 women for every 100 men) and master’s degrees (140 women for every 100 men).

The huge gender inequity in higher education for the Class of 2017 is nothing new — women have earned a majority of US college degrees in every year since 1982 and since then have earned an increasingly larger share of college degrees compared to men in almost every year, so that men have now become the “second sex” in higher education. Despite the huge and growing “degree gap” over the last 35 years in favor of women, there are still almost 200 women’s centers on college campuses around the country (list here), some receiving public funding, most with the stated goal of “promoting (or advocating) gender equity” and promoting “women’s success.” Here are some examples:

-The University of Virginia Women’s Center educates U. Va. students in how to create change in self, community, and the world by providing programs and services that advocate gender equity.

-The Duke University Women’s Center is dedicated to helping every woman at Duke become self-assured with a kind of streetwise savvy that comes from actively engaging with the world. We welcome men and women alike who are committed to gender equity and social change.

-The mission of the University of Idaho Women’s Center is to promote and advocate for gender equity on campus and in the community through programs and services that educate and support all individuals in building an inclusive and compassionate society.

-The University of North Carolina Women’s Center (The Center for Gender Equity) strives to be a leader on efforts and initiatives related to gender equity.

Even though the publicly stated goal of almost every Women’s Center is “gender equity,” there seems to be a very selective concern about what gender equity really means, with no concern at all about the inequities at every level of higher education favoring women to the point that men have clearly become the “second sex” in higher education. There is also apparently no willingness for any of these women’s centers to close down even though gender equity in higher education was achieved 35 years ago (for college degrees), and there is no question that women are now much more successful than men in terms of both completing college and earning degrees at all levels from associate’s degrees to doctoral degrees.

How bad is it?

Professor Christopher Cornwell at the University of Georgia has found that a heavily feminist-driven education paradigm systematically favors girls and disadvantages boys from their first days in school. Examining student test scores and grades of children in kindergarten through fifth grade, Cornwell found that boys in all racial categories are not being “commensurately graded by their teachers” in any subject “as their test scores would predict.”

According to Cornwall, part of the answer lies in the way teachers, who are statistically mostly women, evaluate students without reference to objective test scores. Boys are regularly graded well below their actual academic performance.

Boys are falling significantly behind in grades, “despite performing as least as well as girls on math tests, and significantly better on science tests.”

After fifth grade, he found, student assessment becomes a matter of “a teacher’s subjective assessment of the student’s performance,” and is further removed from the guidance of objective test results. Teachers, he says, tend to assess students on non-cognitive, “socio-emotional skills.” This has had a significant impact on boys’ later achievement because, while objective test scores are important, it is teacher-assigned grades that determine a child’s future with class placement, high school graduation and college admissibility.

Eliminating the factor of “non-cognitive skills…almost eliminates the estimated gender gap in reading grades,” Cornwell found. He said he found it “surprising” that although boys out-perform girls on math and science test scores, girls out-perform boys on teacher-assigned grades. In science and general knowledge, as in math skills, the data showed that kindergarten and first grade boys’ grades “are lower by 0.11 and 0.06 standard deviations, even though their test scores are higher.” This disparity continues and grows through to the fifth grade, with boys and girls being graded similarly, “but the disparity between their test performance and teacher assessment grows.”

These disparities are “even sharper for black and Hispanic children” with the “misalignment of grades with test scores steadily increases as black and Hispanic students advance in school.”

The study, he said, shows that “teachers’ assessments are not aligned with test-score data, with greater gender disparities appearing in grading than testing outcomes.” And the “gender disparity” always favors girls.

In Defense of a Thug Life
As a boy that somehow survived his “education”, I and many of my friends were keenly aware of this disregard and disrespect of who we really were. We weren’t good boys, I will admit that; with long, greasy hair and smelly flip flops, skateboards, we always sat at the back of the room, which was a mutually agreeable situation for all involved. If we bothered to go to school at all, the surfboards were strapped to the roof of the car, and if the WRV surf report (which we listened to in the smoking area on a transistor radio) sounded promising, we usually just left. It’s almost laughable today to see “professional” educators groveling for more respect (and money), when me and my boys always knew if they had an opportunity, they would have made us wear orange jump suits and chained our ankles together.

Implicit Bias
Of course, we all know that most teachers are wonderful people and dedicated professionals. If you ask any teacher (we have for this article) if they treat boys and girls the same, they will answer yes. I believe they are being honest about this. However, according to the NEA, whether or not a teacher “believes in” their students and expects them to succeed has been shown to affect how well that student does in school, particularly among disadvantaged students. But educators should be aware that those expectations can be influenced by their own implicit biases.

“Our belief here is that we all have implicit biases,” said Maureen Costello, director of Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The consequences of this bias, even unintentional, has been less than optimal for some boys. Becki Cohn-Vargas, the co-author of Identity Safe Classrooms: Places to Belong and Learn, notes that unequal treatment may also fuel the school-to-prison pipeline. “This is not about blaming or pointing fingers,” she said.

It is clear that the decisions made by teachers affect children’s life trajectories. Is it time to accept that it is possible that an implicit bias against boys might exist?

Comments

The second to last sentence says some of it for sure, teacher decisions (and parental decisions) affect the students life.
I wonder if drug use, etc. was looked into when it comes to college attendance and their falling behind. Mental health issues. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Can’t blame it all on teachers.

Changing education to capture the attention of boys in a different way may be the key. Votech programs for instance, not everyone needs to go to college.

People naturally assume that the public school system is trying to do what’s best of the children. The fact of the matter is that these institutions have nothing to do with education. They are set up by people who, like all other people, have their own personal agendas. The public school’s true purpose is to put certain messages into the children’s heads so they’ll be more obedient of the government when they get older.
Consider the ‘grade’ system. You start off in first grade, where you’re placed not by academic ability, nor by willingness to learn, but by age. The reason for this is very simple. Most children already think of adults as if they’re their superiors, and now they’ll associate their position in the grade system with superiority. Obviously, that’s nonsense. A kid in the 5th grade may very well have less overall academic ability then a kid in the 2nd grade. Moreover, education isn’t something that can be ranked. The kind of education that tends to be more valuable later on in life is your specialization, not the sheer quantity of raw general knowledge.
Next, consider the way a classroom is structured. The teacher is in charge. The students are to listen to the teacher. This is most peculiar as well. After all, the teacher is a hired employee, who is in fact working for the students. If anything, the teacher should be listening to the concerns of the students, not the other way around. The reason the classroom setting is set up in this way is clear. The students learn at an early age to respect authority figures, so later on, they obey the government.

This is quite an essay, Ron Justis, and it really goes some distance to demonstrate how divergent our thought patterns are here in America, which I definitely think is generational.

Do people naturally assume that the public school system is trying to do what’s best of the children, Ron Justis?

Or do they send their children off each day because it is what the law mandates and if they don’t, they’ll be in trouble with the law?

How many people even have a clue today as to what is going on inside the maximum security prisons our schools are becoming?

How many people have a clue as to the value of what is being taught, if they even know what it is?

You say, Ron Justis, “(T)he fact of the matter is that these institutions have nothing to do with education.”

But what is education?

Isn’t that really an open-ended discussion in the United States of America today, with these arguments over STEM v. STEAM, as if everyone in America needs to be a mathematician or scientist to make their way through to day, because life has become so hard in America today?

Then you say, “(T)hey are set up by people who, like all other people, have their own personal agendas.”

But wouldn’t it have to be that way?

Wouldn’t it be chaos, otherwise?

And next you say, “(T)he public school’s true purpose is to put certain messages into the children’s heads so they’ll be more obedient of the government when they get older.”

That I believe to be true, and I know the message I was taught when young did a 180-degree turn shortly thereafter.

I had my early education shortly after WWII concluded, and what I was taught is “DO NOT BECOME ANOTHER GOOD GERMAN!”

Be a sceptic when it comes to government and those in power.

Watch them like a hawk and never trust them.

That reference to the “GOOD GERMANS” was with respect to the 80 million German people who unquestionably bowed and prayed at the alter of the rug-chewing madman, Adolph Hitler,

Then, as the COMMIES became the threat of the day, the message changed to be obedient, do not question, only obey.

Where that message came from was never explained to me, but given as all educational systems in this country are ultimately controlled by either the Republicans or Democrats, the message came from one or more likely, both of them, for obvious partisan reasons.

Then you make the statement “Consider the ‘grade’ system.”

“You start off in first grade, where you’re placed not by academic ability, nor by willingness to learn, but by age.”

end quotes

I actually started out in the kindergarten, where I was placed because I was five years old, and the law said that was where I was to be placed, because I was five.

It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with academic ability or willingness to learn.

The fact that a law passed by adults makes it mandatory for children to attend school does not mean that those children will get anything out of it.

Some do, a lot don’t.

Then you say, “The reason for this is very simple.”

“Most children already think of adults as if they’re their superiors, and now they’ll associate their position in the grade system with superiority.”

end quotes

Adults are their superiors, Ron Justis, unless you want a world where the children are in charge, like in Washington, D.C., except everywhere and not just there, and the adults have to take their orders and direction from the children.

And then you lose us a bit when you say “(O)bviously, that’s nonsense.”

“A kid in the 5th grade may very well have less overall academic ability then a kid in the 2nd grade.”

end quotes

That is one hell of a school district, isn’t it, Ron Justis, where the kids cpome in smart and get dumber as the seasons progress.

This statement of yours I find myself in agreement with: “Moreover, education isn’t something that can be ranked.”

And I would agree with this as well, but some of these things you just don’t know until you get older: “The kind of education that tends to be more valuable later on in life is your specialization, not the sheer quantity of raw general knowledge.”

And then we get to here in your essay:

“Next, consider the way a classroom is structured.”

“The teacher is in charge.”

end quotes

That is exactly what my kindergarten teacher said the first day of class:

“You’re not home now!”

“You’re in my classroom!”

“I’m in charge and you are not here to fool around, you are here to learn how to become productive members of society so you won’t be a dead weight on society.”

end quotes

So you are dead on the money, Ron Justis, when you say “(T)he students are to listen to the teacher,” although truth be told, many won’t.

And then you bring us to here: “This is most peculiar as well.”

“After all, the teacher is a hired employee, who is in fact working for the students.”

“If anything, the teacher should be listening to the concerns of the students, not the other way around.”

end quotes

The teacher is a paid employee of the school district, which is to say the taxpayers.

The teacher does not work for the students.

You say, “(T)he reason the classroom setting is set up in this way is clear.”

“The students learn at an early age to respect authority figures, so later on, they obey the government.”

Liberalism and Political Correctness are the greatest dangers that exist to our children. 92.5% of teachers (college and public school) are bleeding heart liberals.

Just take a look at tv shows, movies, and commercials….males are cast as sissies. They look, talk and act like they have been demasculinized by design. They then have encouraged them to get gym muscles and wear tight cloths. Muscles will never make a Man…These sissies with muscles have no Heart. It is all for show. If threatened they call the cops.

Root causes, of diminishing the role of a male in society.
Aggressive driving; the need to prove oneself, to demonstrate superiority, to compensate for a lacking.
1200 reported incidents of road rage in 2016, which 97% were committed by males.
Northampton County, rich in fishing and hunting, has a dark side. Outside of extracurricular school activities, few to any alternatives exist. No bowling alley, no cinema, little for teens and young people to engage in. Filling the chasm, a percentage turn to their vehicle. The image doesn’t skew until examining notable instances of unconscientious law enforcement. Acquaintances, friends, relatives; the officer electing to enable recklessness, is granting its decree. Decades later, road-side memorials permeate the landscape, for or because of the adolescent-minded male.

I read this stuff and I wonder what the heck world did I come from, then.

Or what world have I ended up in.

When I was young, after WWII, the reason that we went to school was so that we could learn to become productive members of society in whatever capacity that we could.

If that was as a doctor, all well and good, just the same as if someone was a truck driver or worked on a farm.

Find your skills and interests and then develop them.

It was really a pretty simple concept, I have always thought.

And the girls were always the better students, by and large, when I was young.

They were more focused on learning than were the boys.

And they certainly were not being left behind in anything.

When did that start?

So I read this article above, and all I can do, truthfully, is wonder what the heck the world has become in the interim.

Seems like everybody today needs a psychologist personally assigned to them from the time they are born to guide them through the rigors of life, such as they might be.

In an article in the Washington Post entitled “Opinions | The NRA is losing its grip — on reality and on politicians” by Jennifer Rubin on 26 February 2018, Ashley Kurth, a teacher from Stoneman Douglas High School, shredded the idea of having guns in the classroom, pointing out that when “fights or arguments over something on Twitter, or Instagram, or just how their day went and having a bad day and somebody just reacts to them wrong,” having a gun in the classroom is the last thing you want.

WTF kind of world do these people live in, anyway, where the lives of people are now dominated by what is being said on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, to the point of causing fights, or worse, and you need guns in school classrooms?

What kind of *****-up world is that?

As to Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, I drive down the road in the morning when kids are waiting for the school bus, and you see them all out there, heads down, staring at the little box in their hand as they paw at it with their other hand.

If I happen to pass the school when it is getting out, there they all are, not making eye contact with each other, or maybe they are not even aware of each other as they walk head down staring at their palm and the little box in it, while pawing at the box with their other hand.

What is in those little hand boxes, anyway, that they have captured people as they have?

You are completely misrepresenting the implicit bias that is occurring in our schools. When you look at the trend in college educated females you also have to look at the trend of the family structure. The family dynamic is changing and gone are the days when dad can support a family on his paycheck. More often than not, BOTH parents HAVE to work in order to support a family. I’m also confused how a growing trend of women earning a degree a bias on men? They put in the work to get it, so why is it discriminatory towards males?

On another note, some of these comments are ridiculous. The public schools have a lot to do with education….. and health, and the arts, and social work, and counseling, oh and don’t forget special education services. I wish people who complain so much about the schools and teachers would volunteer in them or get involved. I realize my opinions may differ from others but I work at a public school and I can honestly say we welcome all community support! Before you bash it, come in and see how you can help out or even read a book to a class. I promise you wouldn’t hate it so much.

Just out of curiosity, and no disrespect intended, but why do people make a statement such as “these comments are ridiculous” without then pointing out which comments are ridiculous and HOW they are ridiculous?

I’m not saying that all of the comments are ridiculous. Some bring up valid points that I do agree with and had not thought of before. I didn’t quote the exact comment but I did mention the comment in the next line. Here is the comment I am referring to … “These institutions have nothing to do with education.. The public school’s true purpose is to put certain messages into the children’s heads so they’ll be more obedient of the government when they get older.” The reason I believe this comment is ridiculous because as a child is diagnosed with a disability (determined by evaluations conducted at the public school),they receive services and have a legal right to a free and appropriate education. These students have goals outlined in an individualized education plan that there case manager or special education teacher Must implement by law. Many students receive occupational therapy services, physical therapy, speech therapy, and specialized education based on the needs of the disability. These are not created for them to be obedient to the government, but instead to make them live an independent and successful life as a contributing member of society.

“These institutions have nothing to do with education.. The public school’s true purpose is to put certain messages into the children’s heads so they’ll be more obedient of the government when they get older.”

To me and others like me you and those like you are living proof that that diatribe is very correct. Public Schools teach what they are told to by their masters…The Government of The United States of America.

Sheep Reid, dude, do you think it would be more proper, or more fair somehow, to have our schools under the control of the government of Zimbabwe, or maybe Kenya, or Uganda or Haiti, as opposed to the government of the United States, which is really the Democrat and Republican parties?

That the two political parties which own all of our governments from the president down to the local dog catcher are also heavily involved in our education system is made apparent by searching the internet.

For example, there is the Politico article “What the Republican platform says about education” by Micheal Stratford on 07/19/2016, with help from Caitlin Emma, Kimberly Hefling and Caroline Kelly, where we were told:

GOP PLATFORM UNVEILED: Delegates at the Republican National Convention on Monday evening approved a 58-page party platform that contains a range of education provisions.

end quotes

Were you aware of that, Sheep Reid?

Why do you think the Republican party is meddling with education in this country?

For the good of the nati0n?

Or for the good of the party?

And do you think, Sheep Reid, that the Republican party wants people in this country educated enough to be able to question the Republican party?

Or does the Republican party want people in this country to be mindless automatons who will do their bidding without question?

Here’s a rundown of some of the key K-12 education issues of the Republicans:

— On school choice: Republicans are, unsurprisingly, very supportive of school choice, “especially … innovative financing mechanisms that make options available to all children: education savings accounts (ESAs), vouchers, and tuition tax credits.”

The platform specifically cites the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program as “a model for the rest of the country” that should be expanded.

“We deplore the efforts of Congressional Democrats and the current President to eliminate this successful program for disadvantaged students in order to placate the leaders of the teachers’ unions,” the platform says.

— On testing and the Common Core: Republicans “congratulate” states that have “repealed” the academic standards.

And on testing, they find some common ground with Democrats: The platform rejects “excessive testing and ‘teaching to the test’ and supports the need for strong assessments to serve as a tool so teachers can tailor teaching to meet student needs.”

The platform also encourages “instruction in American history and civics by using the original documents of our founding fathers.”

— On the Bible and abstinence: “A good understanding of the Bible being indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry, we encourage state legislatures to offer the Bible in a literature curriculum as an elective in America’s high schools,” the platform says.

Republicans say that “family planning” programs for teens should be replaced with abstinence education.

And they oppose “school-based clinics that provide referral or counseling for abortion and contraception.”

— On teachers: The platform says teachers should be “protected against frivolous lawsuits and should be able to take reasonable actions to maintain discipline and order in the classroom … Rigid tenure systems should be replaced with a merit-based approach in order to attract the best talent to the classroom.

“All personnel who interact with school children should pass background checks and be held to the highest standards of personal conduct.”

— On K-12 spending: Republicans say the Education Department has spent more than $2 trillion dollars “with little substantial improvement in academic achievement or high school graduation rates.”

The platform supports the notion of Title I portability, which Republicans failed to include in a reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.

“We propose that the bulk of federal money through Title I for low-income children and through IDEA for children with special needs should follow the child to whatever school the family thinks will work best for them,” the platform says.

— On changing the U.S. constitution: The platform calls for a constitutional amendment protecting the right of parents to direct their children’s education, care and upbringing “from interference by states, the federal government, or international bodies such as the United Nations.”

end quotes

As to the Democrats, the Democratic Party Platform stated as follows:

“Democrats know that every child, no matter who they are, how much their families earn, or where they live, should have access to a high-quality education, from preschool through high school and beyond.”

In a Democrat-prepared “puff piece” put out by the Democrats on the Official Website of the Democratic Party before the last election to make people feel good about themselves for liking the Democrats more than the Republicans, we were told:

Democrats believe all children should be able to lead happy, successful lives.

That’s why we’re dedicated to ensuring the next generation has access to a quality education and the tools to drive our economy forward.

Our country is strongest when our workers are trained with the knowledge and ingenuity to perform at the highest levels.

Every child should have the opportunity to reach that horizon and to fulfill the American Dream.

end quotes

Although they can never articulate what it might actually be, the Democrats are big on the “American Dream” as one of their marketing tools.

Getting back to the Democrat “puff-piece:”

Democrats want every child – no matter their zip code – to have access to a quality public K-12 education, and for college to be affordable for every American.

end quotes

They say that and they say that, Democrats want every child – no matter their zip code – to have access to a quality public K-12 education, but when you press them for details on what exactly constitutes this “quality public education,” they can never say.

All they do is cough into their hand and call for the next question while having their security goons toss out the person who wants to know how they define “quality education.”

And then the “puff-piece” tells us this:

Democrats recognize education as the most pressing economic issue in America’s future, and we cannot allow our country to fall behind in a global economy.

We must prepare the next generation for success in college and the workforce.

end quotes

But truthfully, outside of the card-carrying Democrats, who in their right mind wants the Democrats preparing their children for anything?

Which takes us to the Democratic Socialists of America, who wear the Democrat party like a wolf wearing a sheep skin so it can get closer to the lambs, counting Democrat BIG-WIGS Charley “Chuck” Schumer and New York state governor Young Andy Cuomo as members of their political stable.

In the section “Building DSA and the Socialist Left” in “Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution – A summary of Democratic Socialists of America’s Strategy Document – June 2016” posted by William Thompson on 06.25.16, we are told as follows:

DSA’s role in building progressive social movements is essential to our work; regardless of what we gain as an organization from this work, it is an end in itself.

end quotes

It is about power, afterall, as the Democratic Socialist Manifesto goes on the tell us:

However, in order to be effective in this work, as well as to build broader-based, independent socialist organizations that we hope will grow over time into a powerful political force, we need to dramatically increase the ranks of the socialist movement in the United States.

While DSA has expanded significantly since 2010, there is still tremendous room for growth, especially in the wake of Sanders’ Political Revolution, which exposed countless young people to the idea of democratic socialism for the first time.

end quotes

Young people are the key to everyone’s future, and the question before the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as the Republican party, is how to capture them.

Here the Democratic Socialists might be out in front, a bit:

In order to take advantage of this potential, DSA chapters will use a range of tactics to help expand our activist and membership base.

First, we will place a greater emphasis on our critique of capitalism and positive vision of democratic socialism in our coalition, public education and community organizing work.

end quotes

Of course, public education!

That is where you capture the minds of America’s youth, by getting control of how they are educated.

And what a powerful message the Democratic Socialists of America have to make that capture with:

It should always be remembered, however, that like every other form of society, a democratic socialist society cannot produce total social harmony.

Such a society will always have to navigate among the competing claims of different groups and democratic political institutions will always be needed to arbitrate and mediate such conflict.

Democratic socialism, that is, will not be the utopia that many socialists of old imagined.

Yet the achievement of a democratic socialist society would nevertheless mark one of the greatest advances in human history.

Instead of war, there would be peace; instead of competition, cooperation; instead of exploitation, equality; instead of pollution, sustainability and instead of domination, freedom.

Life would still have sorrows as well as joys, and there would still be failed projects and unrequited love.

But with democratic socialism there would no longer be unnecessary suffering imposed on the mass of society by institutions over which we have no control.

end quotes

There it is, Sheep Reid – no more unnecessary suffering imposed on the mass of society by institutions over which we have no control.

How is that something you could possibly be against?

In section III of the democratic Socialist Manifesto, entitled “Our Strategy,” we are informed as follows:

We believe democratic socialism is the only humane and democratic alternative to capitalism, but considering our limited resources at present we must think carefully about how to translate our socialist ideals and values into a viable political strategy.

In the subsection to section III, entitled “Building Multiracial, Intentionally Intersectional Coalitions,” we are told as follows:

DSA’s analysis of the interrelationships among many different forms of oppression under capitalism suggests that the only democratic socialist strategy capable of effective resistance to capitalism is one that links together antiracist, feminist, LGBTQ, labor, anti-ableist, and anti-ageist (as well as other) movements by “connecting the dots” between them.

We consider each of these struggles to be mutually reinforcing, and believe that the success of one ultimately depends on the success of the others.

Further, capitalists have consistently used appeals to white racism, and tensions at the intersection of gender and race, to maintain divisions among the working class.

In order to overcome these divisions and forge deeper solidarities across the working class, it is essential that a disproportionately straight, white, male, English-speaking, mostly college-educated socialist organization such as DSA prioritize racial justice work and organize actively within struggles where racial, gender, class and sexual oppression intersect.

We must do so with humility and take our lead from the organizations that organize and are led by poor and working-class people in those communities.

The specific coalitional work undertaken by each DSA chapter will vary depending on local circumstances, but could include, to name a few, fights for universal health care and for higher quality public education, and struggles against prison expansion, police brutality and discriminatory treatment of undocumented workers.

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And there we are back to that phrase “higher quality public education,” because it has such a catchy ring to it – how can anyone in America possibly be against “higher quality public education?”

And since the Democratic Socialists of America are for “higher quality public education,” they are the good guys, so how can anyone then be against them?

See how it all works, Sheep Reid, why political control of primary education is so politically important to the vying political parties in this nation?

That importance is emphasized in the Democratic Socialist Manifesto in the section on “Labor Organizing,” as follows:

The fundamental social relationship in capitalism is between the worker and the capitalist (employee and employer), and the exploitation of workers by capitalists is the primary source of profitability within the capitalist system.

This relationship gives an organized working class tremendous potential power, and it makes the self-organization of working people an essential weapon in anticapitalist struggle.

Further, labor organizing gives DSA members a chance not only to work toward a revived workers’ movement but also to build DSA.

U.S. history has shown that the best recruits for socialism are experienced and radicalized workers, and, similarly, that the best workplace organizers are socialists.

For these reasons we must place the trade union movement and newer, less traditional forms of worker self-organization (e.g. workers’ centers) front and center in our priorities.

This work is especially necessary today, when worker organization is at a historic low after decades of relentless corporate attacks.

The most important DSA involvement in the labor movement in the coming years will be in our individual capacities as unionists.

We cannot — and should not — direct our members to find employment in certain sectors of the economy in order to work as rank-and-file organizers.

We can, however, encourage and support our members who become rank-and-file activists, as well as shop stewards and local union officers, and encourage dialogue and coordination in sectors where many DSA members work, such as health care, social services and teaching.

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Focus in on that last sentence above here, Sheep Reid – encourage dialogue and coordination in sectors where many DSA members work, such as teaching, and ask yourself the question – Is education ever free from political influence and meddling?

So do you see the old political adage “He who controls communications, controls, he who controls communications absolutely controls absolutely,” at work there big time on behalf of the Democratic Socialists of America, Sheep Reid?

The Democratic Socialists are going to take down capitalism in America by teaching America’s youth to hate capitalism and to love socialism.

Not hearing a different message as they are educated by Democratic Socialist of America members, they won’t know the difference.

And thus, the coming revolution will be a quiet one.

By the way, HuffPost had an interesting article on the subject by Gayle Greene, a longtime professor of English at Scripps College and the author of several books, entitled “For Public Schools, It’s Been ‘1984’ For Quite A While” on Apr. 10, 2017, where she stated as follows:

In this post-truth age that’s done away with facts, George Orwell’s “1984” has soared to the top of the charts.

But in the world of public education, it’s been 1984 for quite some time.

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Are you comprehending what she is saying there, Sheep Reid, dude?

You remember “1984,” don’t you – “The truth is a lie!”

Getting back to the HuffPost article:

And we didn’t even need the clumsy apparatus of a totalitarian dictatorship to bring it about.

All we needed was some slick PR and smiley corporate faces and a media ready to spit back the buzzwords they’d been fed— failing public schools, no excuses, accountability, choice, access for every child, closing the achievement gap—repeating them so often that they passed for truth.

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You see what we are saying about political interference and meddling in our education system by these political parties for partisan political gain, Sheep Reid?

Getting back to Huff Post:

In Orwell’s dystopia, WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

The Ministry of Truth spawns lies and propaganda, the Ministry of Love supervises torture and brainwashing, and the Ministry of Peace promulgates war and atrocity.

Turn the words on their heads, and you get a glimmer of the truth.

And the Ministry of Education?

There is no Ministry of Education.

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There is no Ministry of Education, Sheep Reid, because in a totalitarian society, you are trained, not educated; you are indoctrinated, not taught to think.

Getting back to the HuffPost article:

So now we have a Secretary of Education who’s a dedicated enemy of public education.

Betsy DeVos has, for the past decade, used her fortune to privatize education in her home state, Michigan, where 80% of charters are for profit and beyond accountability, and student performance has plummeted.

But DeVos should come as no surprise: She is the culmination of the way things have long been headed.

No Child Left Behind, signed into law in January 2002, brought to us by George W. Bush and the moneyed interests he represented, arrived in clouds of rhetoric about “access” and “civil rights.”

It announced itself as “an act to close the achievement gap with accountability, choice, flexibility, so that no child is left behind.”

But in fact it was never about access or leveling the playing field or even about “reform”: it was about opening up public education as a market, siphoning off tax dollars to charters and for-profit vendors, shifting public funds from a system that had public oversight and control to private interests.

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Education in a capitalist society, Sheep Reid, is just another bidness opportunity to be exploited, and exploited it most definitely is.

Getting back to the HuffPost:

Education was a rich, untapped market with billions of federal dollars there for the taking.

Schools, panicked at having their survival based on standardized test scores, invested heavily in testing technology.

Diane Ravitch, assistant Secretary of Education under GWB, was initially a proponent of NCLB, but recoiled in horror when she saw what it was doing, routing public funds into private profits, and realized this had been its purpose all along.

She has told this story in ?The Death and Life of the Great American School System” and “Reign of Error” ― so have Noam Chomsky, Henry Giroux, and dozens of teacher bloggers exposed corporate reform.

But their voices are not heard in mainstream media; most people I know are incredulous when I talk this way (even though most people I know are educators), so the story could do with some recap and update, now that DeVos’ appointment has drawn attention.

This sellout has been going on for a long while.

And it has been bipartisan.

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Politics, Sheep Reid – partisan politics and the Democrats and Republicans are working feverishly to poison the minds of America’s youth against their political enemies, not to educate them so they can see the mountains of pure BULL**** both the Republicans and Democrats are selling.

Getting back to the HuffPost:

A handful of billionaires and their foundations bankrolled and orchestrated a multibillion dollar PR campaign to convince people that public education is broken and private interests can do it better.

The Big Three of educational philanthropy, as Joanne Barkan calls them, in a brilliant expose in Dissent –the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart)—poured billions into promoting charters, funding think tanks that produce a steady stream of papers purporting to be research that are actually propaganda, funding advocacy groups that purport to be grassroots but are actually corporate-sponsored, subsidizing writers and bloggers who push privatization.

They have paid for “their own media outlets, and heavily subsidize others,” as Barkan shows, funding films like “Waiting for Superman” and “Won’t Back Down,” suckering in so powerful a proponent as Oprah.

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So what game are you seeing played here, Sheep Reid?

And back to the HuffPost:

It’s been quite a feat, transforming teachers, who were once our friends and allies, to the enemy.

A real sleight of hand, getting the public to trust those altruistic billionaires over those greedy, opportunistic teachers.

Trust a billionaire to have the public’s interest at heart—that spin worked so well it landed us with Trump.

But in the world of 1984, two plus two equals five: “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by [the Party’s] philosophy.”

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That applies equally, Sheep Reid, to both the Democrats and the Republicans – not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by the philosophies of the Democrat party and the Republican party in America in 2018!

When teachers protested that students from disadvantaged backgrounds tend not to test well, having not had the benefit of tutors and test-prep programs, GWB said they were making “excuses,” showing “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Yet it’s painfully clear that using test scores to determine the survival of schools only further disadvantages the disadvantaged, so that far from leveling the playing field, it tilts it even more.

“No excuses” became a mantra of corporate reformers, though it was itself an excuse for shutting down public schools and moving in with charters, an excuse to ignore poverty and blame teachers for conditions that make teaching impossible—conditions assured by inequities that billionaire reformers have themselves brought about.

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Sounds like the education system in America is a real mess because of the Democrats and Republicans, doesn’t it, Sheep Reid?